Allen S. Bishop

I neglected to call Allen for far too long, probably close to a year. I went to his Facebook page yesterday to wish him a happy birthday and learned the sad news. Definitely a wake up call for me. We need to make time for our friends while we can. Allen did a lot of work on my car over the years including rebuilding the engine and trans. I used to help him now and then when he needed help working of his customers cars. A lot of nice iron and aluminum parked on his driveway. We had a lot of opposing opinions on world events but never had a problem spending the day discussing all topics. I wish I had made some time for him this past year but I have a lot of fond memories of time we spent together. Like the day he got so mad at a Greg Garrison car, and threw his wrench on the roof of his garage. Cracked me up. Then to see the car sitting on the lawn at Pebble Beach a few weeks later, offered quite a contrast. That was Allen's world. Working on just another car that needed a difficult repair, then seeing it rolled out as a piece of art a short time later. He had a pretty good gig. I hope he enjoyed it till the end. R.I.P.

 

Just a really nice guy. He'll be missed.

 

Remembering my Friend and mentor the late Alan Bishop on this Car Week. He was a a Judge at Pebble Beach for many years and gave his knowledge and expertise to those who asked in the world of Ferrari. He was a good friend and a trove of information and i enjoyed conversations about Ferraris tremendously. Moderators please merge this with any other treads about Alan if they exist. See you all next year at Car Week.

 

very nice guy to talk with. did anyone take over his shop?
RIP

 

Also can anyone confirm this is Alan Bishop at the FOC Christmas party back in 78-79. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Sure look like Alan. That might be Diane Bloomer he is dancing with and Larry Bloomer in the Santa suit.

 

Thank you Jeff, i was hoping another member would recognize Alan in this picture. Must have been the Marina Yacht Club where FOC would hold their Christmas party for some time. God Bless

 

I was at a couple of those. I recognize a couple of the faces in the other photos but can only remember the name for Lyle Tanner - top right photo, not looking at the camera. Middle picture may be an interior designer and his wife, lived in the flats of Beverly Hills, did a lot of his work for Larry Gosh's building projects.

 

Would that interior designer have been Jon Monet and his wife was Suzie. They had a Daytona I think.

 

Yes, thanks for jogging my memory.

 

You are all correct. I smiled thinking of Jon Monet.. He was trying to build his interior design biz by waaay over extending himself to live in BH (just inside the boundaries) and hanging with the F-crowd. They were so broke that you were lucky to get appetizers if they invited you to dinner. Some days I wasn't a whole lot better off, but at least you knew you would get fed properly, thanks to Phoebe's kitchen skills. Them wuz da days!

Top pic, on the right apppears to be Erich Laitch; bottom depicts Pat and Bruce Sand. We are still in touch with Erich and Pat.

Didn't Bishop spell it Allen?

 

My last encounter with Allen was on the upper balcony in the lobby of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, right after one of L.A. Operas “Salome” performances in the spring of 2017. We didn’t talk shop, but briefly exchanged our (different) opinions/views about the performance & production we had just seen.
While we had exchanged invitations to each other shops, neither of us unfortunately never managed to do it.

 

Although Ferrari-less now, Erich is a great friend, still at Tahoe! Lots of airplanes to replace the Ferrari's tho......I've copied him on the pix!

 

And for those of you who were there that Christmas another page from the FOC magazine. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I remember when Erich was the club president and gave a speech about start time for an event - real time, not Ferrari time. It had gotten real bad with the group on starting times. A 10:00 am start had devolved into 10:30 m, or so, people were still just arriving.

 

Top right - Ken and Rosie Starbird. Ken had a Comp Daytona that he used as a daily driver with open exhausts. Rosie had a 206 Dino. Ed can do the stories on Ken's prior 330P and 250LM.

Lower left - Dan Ward on the left. Woman, can't remember her name but she was with Alessandro Pedani. Alesandro had lived in the US for a loong time but still used he Italian accent to do "how you say in English".

Lower right - Diane and Mark Bloomer. Woman, don't know her name and David Christian.

 

How much of her clothes did Salome remove?

Years ago I took my son who was a senior at high school to a performance of Salome at the Seattle opera house. I could not afford really expensive tickets, and so we sat in the upper balcony, and the stage was far away. As far as I could tell, Salome removed every bit of her clothing.

I asked my son about what he thought about this opera. He said that there was a parallel between Salome/Rosenkavalier and Tristan/Mistersinger because the earlier operas were had music that was more modern in structure that the later ones. About nine years later he got a PhD in music theory from Yale.

 

Well, it wasn’t Karita Mattilas Met. performance, but IIRC, reasonably revealing and seductive.
Allen didn’t seem to think very highly of it.

 

Well, the Santa Fe opera of a few years ago had Ms Salome remove nothing, but rather just retire to a different room.
I do not understand the logic here. How could you have someone's head chopped off if the reason wasn't that he did not appreciate your dance.

 

For those of you like me who did not know about Mattila's Met. performance, you can read all about it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/arts/music/25salo.html

 

Sorry to hear/read of your disappointment, but like all vintage car restorations, every production of performing arts, whether for stage and screen, always takes its own "artistic” direction or licenses, some more than others.
Perhaps in your case, the antagonistic young lady had already deemed her stepfather as a captivated enough without a need to resort further enticements and knew the object of her own desires would be delivered even without need to get naked ...
... but I hear you, since obviously it can be a bit anti-climatic if the audience feels their expectations weren't really met.

My own worse disappointment of such was for L.A. Operas “Parsifal“ maybe 15 or so years ago, when they somehow had managed to "trim" about an hour or so off of the performance and with small club venue rock concerts notwithstanding, it was the only time I've ever attended a live performance where audience (including me) was booing, instead applauding, at end.

 

I’ve never owned an F-car, nor did I know Allen, but had a thirty year long run pursing my Italian-car passion and appreciation via Alfa Romeo, with two long-term owned GTV’s plus a Spider and a GTV6. Before the www existed and we had to search harder for reading and tech educational materials (i.e., books) I bought Allen’s “Ferrari Guide to Performance” and soaked-up every last detail because I knew it would somehow make me a little better. It’s still on my bookshelf, along with Rasmussen, Ludvigsen, Nowak, Borgenson and my other heroes.

John

 

Mine is too grubby to ever try to sell - primarily the synchronization of the carbs section, starting on p.81 . . .

 

Allen had a GTV as his daily driver around 1977.